Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

because they have no dealer network, which marks up the product. So, they are the low cost leader by selling direct. I think they are also made in China. At least that's what I've read about all of their other products.

To me the name kind of sounds like those cheap stereos people would sell out of the trunk of their car or out of a van near a gas station, even though they aren't. :-)

I personally just can't get past the name. :-)

They have a wonderful little desktop volume control for $50 and a nice DAC for around $500.

You discovered a secret.

Start using Actives like this and you may not be able to return to Passive Speakers (starting at $2,000) & proper Amps (starting up round $1,500+).

All these little Actives are category crushers when it comes to performance and price.

So, why would someone buy a Magico? if they had one listen to any of the Professional Nearfield of Midfield Monitors from : Emotiva, Focal or Genelec?

Tony in Michigan

ps. of course this stuff is Professional Grade, not pretty enough to show off, maybe.

ps.2 Nice to see Stereophile doing a reality check like this.

I agree with the show off.
It looks to me that the real' Hi Fi/musique lovers 'entousiast don't care about gliter etc...
What counts is the sound experience.

Nice enough but nothing that a Behringer can't do for a bit less, and certainly not delivering what the JBL LSR305 does. There's your category leader. Street price $240 a pair too.

Nice to see increasing coverage of active monitors. I'd love to see a review of Emotiva's top active monitor, Stealth 8 ($749). Or a review of their top mono block power amp, XPR-1 ($1699). Neither are audio jewelry, but are reputed to be category crushers and highest value/$. Such reviews may not sit well with main stream manufacturers and advertisers, or with people who suffer from upgradeitis.

Sister site Audiostream's Michael Lavorgna loves studio grade Adam and Focal active monitors. I remember Paradigm's Reference Active 40 got rave reviews as a category crusher years ago.

Perhaps active monitors will become more popular as people demand better desktop performance and then experiment with them in their main audio systems. Makes sense in terms of value/$, amp/speaker optimization, fewer cables and less space.

Would having amplifiers built in to the speaker cabinet improve damping of resonances?
I am currently the proud owner of a pair of Emotiva's Stealth 6s (with 200 watt amps)....ruggedly handsome at a staggering 26 lbs. My wife's frequent banishing has fewer consequences because I can now simply carry my stereo to the time-out room. I have them mated to their DC-1 DAC/preamp and the combo is just fantastic... very balanced and smooth. Thankfully, 1 less component to match!
The downside to Emotiva's speakers is the rear port but compared to the Airmotiv's, the Stealth's give you an extra option (bass roll-off) for accommodating room accosutics. It appears subtle at first but fiddling with the controls REALLY helps with the bass response.
I should also add that the price-to-performance ratio is very linear when it comes to powered monitors. And unlike years past, there is a good market for re-selling so even those with upgradeitis can apply ;) The Stereophile crew should look at more powered monitors/speakers and if they want high end, in addition to the usual suspects from the likes of Focal, Genelec and Adam, I think the Event Opals at <$3000 a pair are a proper bargain. I have heard a lot of awesome speakers but nothing quite like the Opals.